Stouter Stuff
by imagination-running
Summary: "These past five years have shown us all that Hiccup is made of stouter stuff than we ever knew." One-shot. Valka and Gobber wonder at Hiccup's strength.


Valka gathered the heavy fur cape from the snow. As she stood, pulling the garment into her arms to keep it from dragging the ground, she watched as Hiccup, Gobber, and the three other boys whose names she had yet to learn carried the body of Stoick the Vast to the hastily repaired boat. The men strained under the dead weight of their deceased chief. Stoick was always so much larger than life. He stood just over seven feet tall and weighed more than three hundred pounds. In spite of having been separated from her husband for two decades, she could never forget the sound of his booming voice nor the strength in his arms as he held her. Even when he spoke low and whispered, his words carried across the room. And his strength… Her mother had truly been afraid for Valka when Stoick worked a marriage contract for her hand. Valka remembered the "woman's talks" her mother had given her in the weeks leading up to the wedding. Apart from being among the most embarrassing conversations of her young life, her mother had even thrown in some self-defense moves for Valka to remember should Stoick be rougher than Valka anticipated. "Men just don't understand, girl, and in the heat of the moment, it's all too easy for them to lose themselves," her mother had warned. It had not mattered, however, because despite his hulking form, Stoick had only ever been gentle with her regardless of the situation long before the wedding night. In fact, when that night did arrive, he made her swear an oath to tell him if there was a problem. He would not touch her until she had made the promise. After weeks of her mother's warnings, she had almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, but she could see in his eyes that he was genuinely concerned and had sworn the oath with a smile and a kiss. It was what she had loved most about him, after all, his protectiveness. He was strong enough to lead an entire tribe of Vikings into battle, yet he would always treat her with the utmost respect and care.

At last, the group of men had gotten Stoick lain upon the platform in the ramshackle boat. The three young men that Valka did not know stepped back as Gobber and Hiccup arranged Stoick's limbs and settled him into place in preparation of his final journey on this Earth. She could see both men's shoulders shudder at times followed by a quick swipe of their eyes, but they made no sounds as they went about their work.

Valka had made it to the little boat by the time they were done arranging the man and the few belongings he had with him at the Dragon Sanctuary. They stepped back to allow her to cover Stoick with his fur cape. He only had his ax, belt, and the few necessities he had tied to his belt. As chief of Berk for thirty years, he should have gone to Valhalla with far more of his possessions. She hoped he would be granted mercy by the gods and given what he would need to live happily in the afterlife. Everything was silent, except for a few sniffs from the group behind her. She gently began to pull the cape over Stoick's body. She had never seen him so pale, not even when he became ill two months before Hiccup was born. Whatever illness he had contracted back then had knocked him flat on his back for two weeks. He spent nearly a week and a half of that delirious with fever or passed out. The night before his fever finally broke, he was so sick, that everyone feared they would lose him, but when the sun had broken the horizon the next day, his fever had finally abated, leaving him in a deep, restful sleep. She had hoped to never see him in such a state again, but now, Valka wished that he would just be sick because it would mean he was still alive. That was a fool's dream, however. With tears blurring her vision, she leaned down and kissed his forehead. "Go to Valhalla, my gentle giant. I will meet you there," she whispered as she pulled the cape up over his face and stepped back off the boat.

Valka walked over to where Gobber was standing silently. The girl twin had started a small fire while the other girl, Valka had learned her name was Astrid, had gathered bows and arrows from the battle field. Everyone stood in a line holding their bows waiting as Hiccup placed his father's helmet on Stoick's chest. Valka watched as her son's slight form knelt beside his father's body. His hands shook as he set the helmet on top of the cape, and Valka could see his mouth moving as he said his last goodbyes. He looked so small kneeling next to the fur-covered mountain that was Stoick the Vast. He had seemed so strong only hours before in the cave where she had dropped him after pulling him from Toothless mid-flight. She now wondered if maybe her assessment had been wrong. Maybe Hiccup was not quite as strong as she had thought. Maybe it was only among dragons that Hiccup stood tall and firm.

Gobber came up beside her, his eyes never leaving the scene before them. "He always was a scrap of a thing. After you were…taken, Stoick didn't know what to do with the boy, sent him to the Jorgenson's for a week. She was still nursing Snotlout at the time, so Stoick figured she could just as well nurse Hiccup, too, but after a week, she showed up at the forge where Stoick was talking with me and dumped the babe right in Stoick's arms and told him that she weren't going to be raising no hiccup of a babe that didn't even belong to her. Turns out, the poor boy had been inconsolable away from his mum and dad for so many days, and well, the Jorgenson's weren't too fond of him to begin with. They always thought that ye and Stoick would have done better to send him to sea when he was born, small as he was."

Gobber sighed and swiped at his eyes, again. Hiccup was standing up, his back to the group on the beach, trying to regain his composure. Without preamble, Gobber started again. "He was a sickly babe after that. Stoick had to make do with yak milk and was always leaving him with some of the women of the village during the days and sometimes nights. Everyone said it was the milk; he wasn't getting all the nutrition he needed from yaks, especially since he came early, but you were dead – eh, we thought – so mother's milk wasn't an option. None of the other mothers was willing to share, except Fishlegs' mum, but Fishlegs was always a big eater. Twasn't often she had enough for both boys.

"Hiccup was the first born but the last to crawl, walk, talk, or any of it. We thought he was weak in the mind and body for nearly all his babe years, but then I gave him a charcoal stub one day he was with me in the forge. He was about four or five. I was just trying to keep him occupied because the boy was always into something. He ran off into the corner and got blessedly quiet. I didn't care because I was too busy working on orders. At least a couple o' hours must have passed by the time I realized I hadn't heard a peep from the wee mite in a while, so I went looking him. I found him off in the same corner. He had that charcoal in his left hand of all Thor-forsaken things and had letters and numbers scribbled all over the wall. There were drawings, too: axes, hammers, even people. I knew, then, that just because he was small enough to put a terrible terror to shame, he wasn't dumb. I started letting him stay in the forge more. Most o' the mothers didn't want him around their young'uns anyway, afraid his oddness would rub off on their babes, and I thought that maybe I could teach him a few things. Stoick thought that maybe working in the forge would bulk up his boy, give him more coordination and confidence, make him more of a Viking. It didn't, o' course. Hiccup stayed a clumsy hiccup. It wasn't until he met that dragon that he started to come into his own. Riding and working with that beast gave him muscles he had never had before, and while he's still a klutz on the dirt, put that boy in the air, and he's as graceful as any bird. He's gained a confidence and a nerve that he never had before Toothless. These past five years have shown us all that Hiccup is made of stouter stuff than we ever knew."

Gobber paused as Hiccup walked onto the shore and began to shove the boat out to sea. His metal foot slipped, and his knees hit the sand. He hung his head and cursed just loud enough for everyone to hear. Astrid laid down her bow and arrow and walked over to help him. As Hiccup got back to his feet, Gobber turned to Valka and laid his hand on her shoulder. "Yer boy is stronger than you think. The strength of his mind, his heart, his soul, would dwarf Stoick the Vast. He may be down right now, but don't count him out just yet."

Then, Gobber was stepping away to hand Hiccup his bow and arrow. The boat was floating out to sea. Astrid returned to the line. Valka walked over and stood on the girl's left, and Gobber began the eulogy.

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A/N: Hi, HTTYD fandom! This is my first fanfiction for this fandom, but far from my first foray into writing fanfiction. I've got some old poems under the Bible heading here and some old Harry Potter fanfics. More recently, though, I've done some Percy Jackson stories.

At any rate, I love HTTYD. I've only watched the movies and the show, but I've recently begun to read the books, too. It'll take some time because I'm much older than most folks on here, 31 years old, married with two kids, in fact, so you know bear with me.

Anyway, I hope you liked this little one-shot. No promises on anything else. Like I said, my time is limited.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD movie franchise or book rights.


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